{"id":171,"date":"2011-09-22T22:24:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T22:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/?p=171"},"modified":"2014-07-09T05:30:45","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T05:30:45","slug":"how-to-teach-focus-at-a-young-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach Focus at a Young Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many coaches tend to start seeing their first gray hairs while trying to maintain focus throughout practice or a game with female athletes.\u00a0 As an adult, we sometimes forget how difficult it is for a young female athlete to stay focused for a 2 hour practice, listen to a 10 minute lecture, or even pay attention to a 2 minute play.\u00a0 At a young age, female athletes are thinking about more things than you want them to or even things you did not know they were thinking.<\/p>\n

Young, female athletes are thinkers, daydreamers, and socialites, for the most part.\u00a0 Many of them enjoy going to practice simply for the socializing rather than actually playing the sport.\u00a0 You have to remember, a sport at a young age isn\u2019t necessarily about a sport yet, and as a coach and a parent, you want to keep this in mind.\u00a0 Joining a team is incredibly important for female athletes to learn how to socialize with other athletes, learn how to work in groups, and learn how to communicate effectively with their peers.\u00a0 It is also a time for young athletes to learn mechanics, the basics of the game, and of course, to have fun.\u00a0 At 10 years old, you want your athlete to enjoy the game and develop memories that they will have for a lifetime.<\/p>\n

With this said, this does not mean young athletes need to lack structure.\u00a0 Young athletes can be shaped at this age to learn discipline, and focus, while enjoying their time on the field.\u00a0 So how do you help these female athletes maintain focus through long practices and games?\u00a0 Patience.\u00a0 Coaches and parents of female athletes need a lot of patience and a lot of persistence to develop structure amongst several 10 year old female athletes running amuck.\u00a0 When a coach loses their temper, or shows their frustration with lack of focus from their young team, the athletes will notice this and continue to act out.\u00a0 Young female athletes tend to avoid negative feedback and will continue to do what makes them happy instead, i.e. messing around on the field.<\/p>\n

So now that you are patient with your team, and they have your attention, how do you maintain their attention for the next few hours?\u00a0 Play games.\u00a0 Young female athletes love to play games, and love to win games.\u00a0 When you create competition in your practices, your athletes will tend to stay focused.<\/p>\n

For example: say you are losing your female athletes attention towards the end of practice and you want them to finish the last 20 minutes.\u00a0 As a coach, call everyone in and say you are playing a game.\u00a0 The game is to see how many athletes can hit the ball to centerfield.\u00a0 If 5 out of 10 athletes hit the ball to centerfield, the whole team doesn\u2019t have to run to the tree and back.<\/p>\n

A game like this will promote competitiveness because they don\u2019t want to run to the tree.\u00a0 It will also help maintain team unity as they need to work together to accomplish the goal, meaning that all of the athletes will stay involved because the punishment is for the entire team; not a \u201csingle loser\u201d.\u00a0 Not only are you just playing a game, but your team is working to hit the ball to centerfield, i.e. up the middle, the ideal hitting zone.<\/p>\n

By remaining patient and promoting teamwork through consecutive games or activities, young athletes will maintain focus, determination, and competitiveness throughout your practices and games.\u00a0 Not only will the athletes learn different mechanics through their games at practice, they will also have fond memories of the fun they had with their team.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Key Points for Maintaining Focus in a Young Athlete<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.) Be patient.\u00a0 Young, female athletes have a very imaginative mind and like to share every thought and feeling they have.\u00a0 Listen to them, ask them questions, and bring them back to focus when they are done sharing with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

2.) Play games.\u00a0 Young, female athlete can be highly competitive and like to participate in games.\u00a0 The more games you play, the more you will maintain focus in your practices<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

3.) Remember that these girls are young athletes.\u00a0 They are playing a game because they think it is fun, not hard work.\u00a0 Let them be young and enjoy the game as much as possible while still giving them direction and structure.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many coaches tend to start seeing their first gray hairs while trying to maintain focus throughout practice or a game with female athletes.\u00a0 As an adult, we sometimes forget how difficult it is for a young female athlete to stay focused for a 2 hour practice, listen to a 10 minute lecture, or even … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[38,36,40,39,19,37,34,33,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coachingafemaleathlete.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}